LUCASVILLE, Ohio -- Trumbull County killer Kenneth Biros this morning became the first person in
the United States to be executed using a one-drug lethal injection protocol.

With his victim's family looking on, Biros, 51, died at 11:47 a.m. in the Death House at the
Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville following the intravenous injection of single,
large dose of thiopental sodium, a powerful anesthetic.

"Now I am paroled to my Father in heaven, and I will spend all my holidays with my Lord and
Savior," Biros said. "Peace be with you."

He said he was "sorry from the bottom of my heart."

It was the first execution in the nation involving one drug as opposed to the three-drug
cocktail protocol abandoned by Ohio but still used in 35 other states.

Ohio prisons director Terry Collins said there were "no problems whatsoever" with the new
one-drug method. "The process worked as expected," he said.

John Parker, one of Biros' attorneys, said after witnessing the execution that he still has
"major concerns" about the intravenous access issue. He said he counted nine times
technicians tried before gaining acess for a single IV line in Biros' left arm.

Biros, 51, was convicted and sentenced to death for murdering Tami Engstrom, who was 22 at the
time, after offering to give her a ride home from a bar in Masury, Ohio, on Feb. 7, 1991. He
dismembered her body, leaving body parts in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Watching Biros' execution from a room about 10 feet away and separated by glass were Mary Jane
Heiss, Engstrom's mother, and Tom and Debi Heiss, her brother and sister.

Mary Jane Heiss was in a wheelchair and had a supply of oxygen. "It's my happy day that I was
here to see this execution," she said.

Debi Heiss said Biros' death "went too smooth. I think he should have gone through some pain for
what he did."

Members of the Heiss family applauded briefly when the time of Biros' death was announced.

Trumbull County Sheriff Thomas Altiere also watched the execution.

Biros' attorneys, Timothy Sweeney and John Parker, argued unsuccessfully to the courts that the
execution should be stopped because it involved "experimentation" using untried and untested
procedures.

The new protocol was unveiled Nov. 13, two months after the execution of Romell Broom was halted
when prison medical technicians spent two hours unsuccessfully trying to attach IV lines. Broom has
gone to federal court to challenge the state's right to try to execute him a second time.

Prison officials did not have to rely on a new backup method involving large doses of two
high-potency painkillers.

Biros was the fourth person to be executed in Ohio this year and the 33rd to die since the state
resumed capital punishment in 1999.